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Grilled Marinated Lamb

By Brandy

May 07, 2014, Updated Jun 07, 2024

This grilled marinated lamb is full of garlic and rosemary flavor. All grilled to perfection and perfect served with a side of roasted potatoes. It’s perfect for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and of course Easter. 

I made this grilled lamb two days after Easter. I had originally bought it to slow roast in the oven overtop golden potatoes. In my brain the lamb was going to cook until pink perfection and the potatoes would be crispy and coated in delicious lamb juices.

So I pop on the oven to preheat, start an episode of Parts Unknown (Anthony Bourdain…swoon!) and start chopping my rosemary. I’m mincing away at my rosemary and I hear a weird sound. I give a side glance to my stove and see a bright light inside the oven. I open the door and the heating element on the bottom of the oven was on fire. Of course I immediately yell “Art! Get in the kitchen! The oven is one fire!” and some how in my hysterics remember I should probably shut the oven off. Art finally gets into the kitchen to see just a tiny baby flame sputter out and the heating element turn to dust and break in half.

I stood there. My mouth was open and my face was basically saying “What. The. Hell!” Except hell might have been replaced with a word that starts with F. Then tears starting streaming down my face as I look at Art and said “My lamb! What am I supposed to do about my lamb? I just bought that lamb and now it’s going to go to waste.” He gave me a hug, told me not to worry all while probably thinking “Ok drama queen…lets bring it down a notch.”

Then I come to my senses and exclaimed that we were off to buy a new oven. So we drove to Sears, Home Depot and Lowes. I finally settled on an oven, charged the thing (my credit card cried) and went to the diner for Easter dinner. If you’re wondering, I had a bacon cheeseburger with fries and Art had a rueben sandwich. Not exactly the traditional Easter food but it worked.

After all this excitement I finally posted to Facebook about my troubles. I was bummed about my lamb and didn’t really want to freeze it but knew it wouldn’t stay fresh in time for the new oven. Then my friend Lauren from the blog Healthy Delicious chimed in “Do you have a grill?” Ummmm why hadn’t I though to grill my lamb? I don’t know, I’m going to blame it on the stress but seriously as soon as she said that I knew it was going to get grilled up!

I did a really simple marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, garlic and just a pinch of salt. I wanted to give the meat some flavor without totally masking all that lovely natural lamb flavor. Your cooking time on the grill will depend on your desired doneness (as you can see I like rare) and the thickness of your meat. I used a boneless leg of lamb and cut it into two hunks because it was easier to cook that way. Obviously the smaller portion cooked first but it was still perfect because it gave it time to rest.

I also think this grilled marinated lamb would be perfect for Mother’s Day because lamb totally yells spring to me. Trust me, your mom would love if you placed a platter of this deliciousness in front of her!

Grilled Marinated Lamb

This grilled marinated lamb is full of garlic and rosemary flavor. All grilled to perfection and perfect served with a side of roasted potatoes. It's perfect for Mother's Day, Father's Day and of course Easter.

Yield: 5 pound lamb

Prep Time: 8 hours marinade time

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes plus marinade time

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 lemon, zested
• 1 lemon juiced
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons minced rosemary
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 5 pound boneless leg of lamb

Slightly adapted from Epicurious

Directions:

In mixing bowl whisk together olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Add to a large 2 gallon ziptop bag (or large marinated bucket if you own one) and add in lamb. Move the lamb around in the back to make sure it's fully coated.

Place the marinated lamb bag in a 9x13 dish and add to the fridge. The dish is there just in case the bag leaks. You don't want to clean marinade out of your fridge. Not a fun job - trust me!

Let the lamb marinade for at least 8 hours. When you're ready to cook your lamb take it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for about 1 hour.

Get your grill up to medium heat and add on your lamb. For medium doneness you want to bring your lamb up to 130 degrees in the middle. This is the perfect time to have a meat thermometer handy. It's your best bet for truly knowing the doneness of the meat.

Once your meat is cooked remove from the grill, add to platter, cover loosely with foil and let sit for at least 15 minutes. This helps keep the meat tender and juicy.

Once your meat has rested slice it up and enjoy!